


silver bullet (it's not over)

by viscountfrancisbacon



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, gun safety does not exist in the dmc universe, killing demons with grandma as a form of family bonding, maybe a oneshot maybe not We Just Don't Know, the CONCEPT of gun safety doesnt exist in this universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscountfrancisbacon/pseuds/viscountfrancisbacon
Summary: in another universe, eva was an umbra witch who created artifacts able to bend time itself. in nearly all universes, nero would go to hell and back to protect his family, even the ones he never got to know - and so would she.it's a really very simple equation.





	silver bullet (it's not over)

**Author's Note:**

> hey so uhhhhhhh  
> why is there no dmc time travel fic with eva in it on ao3, lads. y'all just left me to find that out myself, huh.  
> anyway so i blazed through an LP of 5 on a whim and i loved it. and before even going back to watch the rest of the games i started writing this due to the "if you try to find it and it doesn't exist, you Gotta" clause  
> i hope this works as a standalone oneshot, though. my train of thought was that i've finished literally only a dozen fics ever, and i'm usually strict about never publishing anything until it's finished which results in a large amount of WIPs gathering dust on my hard drive, but this time i'm gonna post what i have and if nothing else ever materializes, at least you got something. keep your hopes low, friends.

The really nice thing about supernatural reflexes, Nero thought, was that for someone still three-fourths human they worked almost faster than his mind could perceive. That, and years of experience, had him reaching back and grabbing the demon trying to chomp his head off before his senses even returned. Nero hauled the demon over his shoulder with a grunt, breaking its grip and leaving it screeching as he snapped its spine over his knee. He lashed out with a front kick to break the charge of the second demon trying to swarm him and straight-armed the third with the full force of Overture, gutting it with electrical force.

Unsheathe Red Queen, move with the momentum to cleave open the one who charged him again. He spun the blade around and leapt, coming down with a shout as Red Queen sunk through putrid flesh and…

Pinned the demon to an intricately woven rug, now absolutely ruined with gore. Nero blinked the last spots out of his eyes. There had been a blinding flash and a burst of pain and the sensation of the whole world collapsing in on him and _twisting_ , and now instead of out on a routine demon hunt he was… in the middle of what looked like a very fancy house. It had an air of aged grandeur, a sense of wealth and history he’d seen in the Order but few places else, though this looked like no Fortunan church or manor he’d ever seen.

It was also being absolutely overrun by demons.

Away from one job and straight into another. Nero gave another shout and revved his sword, Red Queen growling as the engine caught and blazed.

“Come on, now!” He yelled, drawing their attention away from smashing furniture and setting small fires of their own. “Don’t keep me waiting!”

“Sparda!” someone screamed.

Nero glanced up, attention caught by the human timbre and raw distress, and above him on the mezzanine a woman ran to the railing with such reckless speed Nero thought for a moment she’d tumble right over. She was tall, as elegantly dressed as her house, with loose blonde hair and handsome features. She noticed him immediately, their eyes meeting, and despite his battle-ready tension Nero relaxed fractionally.

“Trish,” he called.

Her face ran a whole gamut of expressions – shock, fear, steely resolution. Before either of them could speak their gazes slid away again, Nero catching movement over her shoulder and tensing. Trish’s gaze, looking past him, sharpened. Nero’s off hand flew to the holster on his thigh.

“Look out!”

At the same time, Trish shouted, “Behind–!” and before she’d even finished her sentence she was jumping, gracefully sweeping her legs over the railing despite the dress.

Nero moved to the side and fired, catching the demon sneaking up behind Trish with a squeal and a spray of blood. Next to him Trish landed, rolling to her feet in a whirl of skirts. The demon who’d been behind _him_ charged, only Blue Rose’s twinned barrels and Red Queen’s blade both reflexively jerked away as Trish _lunged at him_.

She planted a hand on Nero’s shoulder and vaulted over him. Nero was shoved forward, the hem of her dress briefly blinding. He dropped into a roll as a scythe-blade whipped over his head, Red Queen shaving the poor rug as he swung from the ground. Legs shorn off at the knee but propelled by the momentum of its own strike, the demon tumbled forward.

It jerked in midair as its brains splattered, a neat headshot drilled between the eyes. The body landed with a soft, wet plop.

Nothing else immediately attacked them, and his sixth sense was no longer blaring danger.

“Damn it, Trish, what’s the big–” Nero grumbled. He hauled himself up on an elbow.

When he looked up, he was staring down Blue Rose’s barrels, Trish’s hands rock steady on the grip. Nero realized, suddenly, she’d vaulted him to move him into the demon’s path – into melee range – then plucked Blue Rose from his fingers and shot before turning the gun on Nero while he wasn’t looking. She had… jumped down from the mezzanine to rush him, forcing him to split his attention between her and the demon, only he’d ignored her entirely because _Trish was his goddamn ally_ –

His ally, who fought with a pair of dark twin pistols she summoned, demon-style, at will.

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize that name,” Trish said quietly. She lifted her chin minutely, gaze cool and dark, feet firmly planted in a shooter’s stance. “I am Eva, magistrix of the Umbra and Sparda’s wife. And _you_ are _not_ my husband.”

Eva, not Trish.

Eva, _Sparda’s wife_.

“Uh,” Nero said dazedly. “...No. No I’m not.”

There was a rising anger in her eyes, not quite directed at him but _intense_. “Yet you heeded my summons. Or hijacked them.”

“Listen, I don’t know what the _hell_ ’s going on–”

“Does Mundus send his servants in human guises, now of all times?” Eva asked, and then Nero could see disgust growing in the curl of her lip and her stormy glare, the way her voice crept higher. Her arms twitched like her hands wanted to fidget on the gun, though she was clearly way too well-trained to do so. “ _Useless_. Demon–”

“I am _not_ a demon!” Nero snapped, chin tipped back defiantly and fingers audibly scraping the floorboards as his fists clenched. He knew he wasn’t Dante or Vergil, who absolutely _could_ survive a point-blank headshot, and thus pissing her off wasn’t _wise_ but he wasn’t about to take that shit lying down even if he was, technically, lying there with a gun to his head. _His_ gun.

“ _Where’s Vergil,_ ” Eva shouted back, wild-eyed and so sudden he shrunk back against the floor. “Where is my _son_?”

As her voice broke on the last word, half of him recognized the desperation with which she’d called out for Sparda. The other half was busy reigning in his temper.

“I don’t _know_ ,” he shouted back, “but I’m not your goddamn enemy! Just let me–”

With a muffled demonic screech, something exploded. A beat of relative silence, then a _bigger_ explosion, floorboards shaking under Nero’s hands and a door up on the mezzanine bursting off its hinges with a splintering crack. It hit the railing, teetered over the edge. Spilling out onto the mezzanine in its wake was a nightmarish skittering mass of limbs and heads.

“Get up,” Eva said, low. Nero jerked his head back to stare at her. She stared back. Once again, he saw the resolve she wrapped around the raw edges of her fear. “You fought those other demons. Get up and prove it.”

She stepped aside, Blue Rose hovering at the ready but no longer pointed at him. Nero got up.

“Well, if my other choice was getting shot in the head,” he muttered, mostly on autopilot. Credo used to tell him sometimes he’d probably mouth off to Death itself if given half a chance.

The demons had, of course, noticed the two humans screaming at each other. Nero noticed some clustering around the doorways and arches, and silly him, he thought it was them they were skittish of until he looked up once more.

The upper half of a Nobody was jammed in a broken gap of the railing. Its dead, open-socket eyes caught Nero’s and he cursed as he realized first that it saw him and second that it was too small to have been the only one who crawled out of that explosion.

“Oh, no. Not the head,” Eva said meanwhile, matter of fact and almost casual.

“Really?” Nero shot back, idly kicking a demon corpse out of the way. It flopped across the floor and he winced a little inside. Brimstone-and-sulfur scented viscera all over nice fancy hardwood. Eugh. “Because it kinda _looked_ like you were aiming for right between my eyes.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. Above, the Nobody alerted it’s fellows with a ghastly shriek. “You really can’t fool me, you know. It wouldn’t have been enough.”

The demon jumped down, landing on all fours. The fifth arm on it’s back was already grasping for them, fingers twitching.

Eva tossed Blue Rose high in the air. She whipped her red shawl off her shoulders, tied like a sash around her waist, and caught the gun through the trigger guard as it fell.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Eva asked that same brisk, faux-light calm as Blue Rose spun like a top around her finger. She caught it by the barrel and pointed the grip at him. “You were already on the ground. I would’ve kneecapped you, obviously.”

Nero went _huh_ , very quietly. He had not expected something akin to battlefield banter from her, that smooth transition from anguished shouting to… well, really not Dante, but the same ballpark perhaps. Somewhere between Dante’s flippant snark and Vergil after Nero smacked a little sense into him.

Then again, his grandmother had been dead long before he’d even been born, so Nero really hadn’t expected anything at all from her.

As the other Nobodys swarmed over the railing and dropped to the ground, the packleader waiting across the room, Nero tossed Eva a speedloader. His demon powers magically reloaded his gun if he only focused on it, but Nero never had outgrown the urge to carry some actual ammunition on him. She used it immediately, discarding the last two unspent bullets in favor of topping up.

Eva flicked the cylinder shut and tossed Blue Rose in the air, her fingers spinning the chamber again and again as she flipped and twirled the gun, tossed it a second time, made it dance a figure eight around her hands. Nero drove Red Queen into the floor and revved it, the engine kicking into gear with a rumble as blazing fuel dripped down the blade – and not to be outdone, he coaxed some sparks from Overture to boot.

With a flourish and a bang, the lead Nobody grew a gaping third eye.

Eva cocked the hammer. “Get the hell out of my house.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> if there's good time travel where eva features prominently on, like, ffn though hit me the fuck up. or just good dmc time travel actually. i beg you i am so thirsty.


End file.
